Sugar Sweet
by NEZUMIso-soup
Summary: Hospital AU, set in Luxembourg, just because I can.   Tino gets admitted to the hospital only hours away from having fallen into a coma. Berwald has two broken legs due to an accident. Doctor Engels places the two boys in the same room.
1. Chapter 1

_Bip-Bip-Bip!_

"Over here!"

"What are you doing?"

"Don't worry, _madame_, we're just going to take some blood. Since it's urgent we'll have an answer within a few minutes, but it's most likely..."

He couldn't see properly, he felt like he was going to be sick, noises all melted together as if he was underwater. Most frightening of all was that he couldn't move. It wasn't like the numb feeling of your feet being frozen after a long day of skiing. He was _too tired_ to move.

The feeling of helplessness as he was moved to a bed like another sack of potatoes upset his stomach; if he'd had anything in it he would have lost it at that point, but he hadn't been able to even drink something more substantial than the occasional sip of water for two days now.

"This might hurt a little..." a calm voice said, and then there something was inserted into the crook of his arm. His body responded to the intense discomfort by trying to discard his intestines through his mouth. He could feel blood rapidly draining out of him, only to suddenly stop. Something like tape was wrapped over it, then cloth, then more tape.

Footsteps falling rapidly, leaving the room.

His mother's hand carefully touching his, as if she was afraid he might break, stroking it slightly.

"Anteeksi," she sobbed quietly.

He wanted to say something to comfort her, but he was too tired, exhausted, and his tongue was dry, his lips stuck together and cracked. No point in fighting it. He slept.

* * *

><p>Tino watched the red bead of blood swell up on his finger. It smelled like wet iron, sickeningly sweet, and a lump of discomfort grew somewhere behind his windpipe. The nurse let go of his hand, put a tiny, white plastic strip into a device which beeped alive. He put the end of the test strip to the bead of blood and the machine beeped again ad numbers appeared.<p>

"Dreihundert-sechs-und-sechzig..." the nurse muttered and jotted something down in a file before cleaning up, giving Tino a piece of tissue to dry off his finger on. The nurse turned to leave, but then stopped himself and turned back to Tino.

"Ach, ja," he said, "Sie wurden später zum Pediatriksklinik transferiert, also..." his eyes travelled across the room, searching for something, frowning when he didn't find it. "Sie haben nichts zu packen." The nurse nodded slowly to himself. "Hmm..." After an awkward moment where they both stared at each other the nurse cleared his throat.

"Guten Tag." He left.

Tino sank back against the pillows. Just having people around and being awake was almost more trouble than it was worth, and it most certainly did not help him understand what the nurse said in the harsh-sounding language he did not speak. Thinking was tiring too, so instead of dwelling on things beyond his means to understand, Tino fell asleep again.

* * *

><p>There was a soft knock on the door. Berwald looked up from his book, sitting as proper as he could in the bed with both his legs in casts. He'd been told another boy was coming. The previous one hadn't stayed long and had completely refused to talk to him. Not that Berwald minded that much, he didn't speek French or German very well, and most certainly not Luxembourgish, so he would probably have made a fool of himself. The other boy hadn't known any English, and Swedish was just too much to hope for.<p>

The door opened, and doctor Engels rolled in the intravenous, followed by two nurses rolling in a bed, placing it in the empty spot left behind by the other boy. Doctor Engels and the nurses quickly went over everything, making sure all the settings were correct on the apparatus regulating the intravenous and making sure the bed's breaks were down so the bed would stay in one place. Then the nurses left, giving Berwald a clear view of his new roommate. He almost wished they hadn't, he looked really pitiful.

The boy was tangled up in the covers, the pained look on his face hinted at unpleasant dreams and the face itself of painful days. The short, blond hair was tangled, and he looked stark white, even against the white covers, except for the cracked lips and around the eyes. The hand, clenched into a fist, was dry with the fingertips all scrunched up like they would be after being in water for too long, only he obviously hadn't been properly washed recently.

Miserable.

Doctor Engels came over to Berwald's side, taking care to be silent so as not to disturb the other's sleep.

"It's sad, isn't it?" he whispered. The doctor was shorter than most at the hospital, even shorter than Berwald, even though he easily was ten or fifteen years older. He had long, brown hair with loose curls which was always tied up in a pony tail at the nape of his neck. Somehow the doctor managed to make it look elegant rather than homeless.

Berwald merely nodded. He liked the doctor, because he never got pushy, accepting nods and small noises as answers where others would have demanded a novel.

"He was alone in the other room, so I'm afraid he's become a bit introverted... Only natural, considering what he's been through... But I would like to see you two trying to get along. It might do you good."

Berwald nodded again, not finding anything to respond with. Doctor Engels smiled understandingly, perhaps a bit sadly, and left.

Berwald could not bring himself to pick up his book again.

* * *

><p><em>Haha, I've actually written the second chapter already, but I want to type up the first chapter of <em>Au Pas, Camrade! _today, too. This is based on my own visit at the hospital, though this is more dramatic (fortunately), and I only shared rooms with old ladies (that had some incredible snoring-powers, I swear, I thought the first one would shatter herself, she looked so fragile!). Thus, I have no real experience of pediatrics wards, and I'll just adapt it the way I want to. This is not meant to be very serious, but knowing my own, stupid self it probably will become serious. :I_

_The other Nordics will show up, and France. And probably others too._

_Och det här lär väl gå käpprakt åt helvete.  
><em>


	2. Chapter 2

Tino awoke to an odd sensation. There was a smell of food and the sound of cutlery hitting ceramics. It took a while for him to realise that he was actually hungry. It made for a pleasant change.

He slowly opened his eyes and was startled by the change in his surroundings. Essentially the furniture was the same, but there was colour to it, and the paintings on the wall wasn't of a mediocre flower-filled field, but of a circus with annoyingly bright and clashing colours.

"Yer 'wake?"

Tino looked towards the opposite side of the room. A bespectacled teen with sandy blond hair sat in a wheelchair. Tino squinted. His sight was blurry, and he couldn't make out any details. Now that he was regaining some strength and his ability to move, this scared him the most. The boy's accent, however, clearly labeled him as Swedish.

After a while he realised he'd been staring (even though he didn't actually see much) and hadn't answered the question. But since it was obvious that he was awake, answering now felt stupid. The silence between them grew.

Finally, the other boy said: "If y' want to eat something, y' press th'button on th'control. They said they'd keep it warm for y'."

Tino nodded slowly, and looked around for the remote. He hadn't used it before; nurses had been running in and out of his room all the time regardless to measure his blood sugar, so he'd just had to ask them for whatever he needed whenever they came along. It lay on the drawer/bedside table-on-wheels next to him. Tino untangled his legs from the covers and reached out for it.

Or rather, he tried to. He couldn't seem to muster enough strength to hold out his hand that far, and it made him sick.

_Wrong choice of words,_ he thought sullenly and tried again.

Berwald watched the other boy try to reach the remote with obvious difficulties, the boy's eyes threatening to glaze over with tears of frustration. After the third attempt Berwald lay down his fork and turned his wheelchair around to call for the nurse with his own remote. He pretended not to notice as the other boy glared at him, face slightly less white with embarrassment.

Soon a nurse entered the room.

"Do you need anything, Mr Oxenstierna?" She asked with a cheery voice.

Berwald shook his head. "He woke up."

The nurse spun around and smiled at the boy, who was no longer glaring.

"It seems he did!" she chirped, "Would you like something to eat, Mr..." She frowned. "I'm sorry, I can't seem to remember your name."

"It's Tino Väinamöinen." The voice was weak and a bit hoarse. _A Finn._ Berwald felt a bit of hope, it wasn't entirely impossible that - Tino? - spoke Swedish.

The nurse smiled again. Tino gave a shade of a smile back, though it seemed to be more of a polite reflex than anything else.

"Well, Mr Väinamöinen, would you like to have your dinner?"

"Yes, please."

The nurse nodded, informing Tino that the doctor would come by, and left the two boys alone with their silence.

* * *

><p>"Good evening, Mr Väinamöinen." Doctor Engels came into the room, followed by a nurse carrying a tray with Tino's dinner. After folding up a table over the bed so that Tino wouldn't have to move out of the bed to eat, she took Berwald's tray and left quietly.<p>

"Kuka sinä olet?" Doctor Engels smiled as Tino's eyes widened in surprise.

"You speak Finnish?"

"Not really. I used to treat a Finnish patient."

"Your pronunciation is really good."

Doctor Engels laughed. "Kiitos. She used to lecture me very sternly. So much, in fact, that I never had the time to learn anything more than that."

Tino smiled. From Berwald's point of view it looked like a real one.

The doctor's eyes wandered to the intravenous.

"Tell us if it get's uncomfortable, all right? We can always try and put it in the other arm, if it gets in the way too much the way it is now. God knows I would have preferred to have it in my left arm."

Tino looked down to the package of tissue and tape that covered the crook of his arm and nodded.

"How much have they told you?"

Tino's face lost the smile.

"Umm..." Berwald only just had the time to look away before the Finn glanced in his direction. He pretended to be very interested in the book he held, despite not having read a single word since the Tino had moved in sometime after lunch.

"I didn't understand much, the nurse kept speaking in German..." Doctor Engels frowned, but did not interrupt. "But I gathered that I have diabetes, it's the kind that requires me to take insulin for the rest of my life, it's not my fault, the reason it affects people is virtually unknown, it's not my fault, Finland has the highest percentage of youths affected in the world, oh, and above all: it's not my fault."

Berwald fought a smile off his face. Tino seemed fairly calm in spite of his new condition, and also surprisingly talkative.

Doctor Engels smiled understandingly.

"It gets tiring to hear that all the time, doesn't it? You'll have to get used to questions, especially now in the beginning people will want to ask you a lot of questions, but it will mostly be the same ones all over again." Tino made a face and Engels laughed. "Within the week, hopefully, the dietician, diabetes nurse and psychologist will start coming to teach you all you need to know. When your blood sugar levels are more stable and we can take away the intravenous insulin we'll teach you how to use insulin pens. It will all seem very much at first, but you'll see that you'll be a pro in no-time." The doctor quickly glanced at his watch. "If you have any questions, write them down and I'll try to answer them next time. For now, enjoy your dinner."

"I will," Tino said. The doctor nodded to Berwald and left.

Tino picked up the fork. His hand was shaking, and the smile quickly vanished from his face. Berwald continued to pretend to read while observing his new roommate. It seemed Tino was putting on a brave face in front of everyone else, even though he was very tired. After a while the fork was discarded, much of the food still untouched. It wasn't until the violet eyes locked onto Berwald's own that he realised he was no longer pretending to read.

"What?" It was probably meant to sound defiant, but the Finn only sounded tired.

"Do you speak Swedish?" Berwald asked after but a moment's hesitation.

Tino was silent for a while.

"No."

And with that, the violet eyes were averted, their owner turning over on his side, shifting his arm to keep the tubes from twisting around him, and fell asleep again.

* * *

><p><em>Thank you so much those of you who sent in reviews! :D<em>

_I'm not quite sure yet how to continue this, I almost never plan a story from beginning to end before I write it... ^-^; But since I'm fuelled by supportive reviews, I guess this might go a long way~ The other Nordics should show up in the next one. :3  
><em>


	3. Chapter 3

"Berwald!" The loud, blond male opened the door without knocking, startling the inhabitants of the room with the sharp hospital sanitizer smell. Sighing to himself, Sigurd followed.

"Mathias, this is a hospital, behave yourself."

Erik stepped in silently, nodding at Berwald, who was sitting at the table with his book. Berwald nodded back.

"Hi."

Mathias, completely without shame, threw his bag on Berwald's bed, and himself after it. "Seriously, Berry, this bed is golden! I'd never leave this place!"

Berwald grinned. "I could help you with that. Return the favour."

"Man, not cool!" Mathias protested, propping himself up on an elbow. "It wasn't my fault that you clumsily tripped on the skateboard I had strategically placed outside your room!"

Berwald snorted. "Right."

Erik, who had remained standing, nodded towards the opposite side of the room. "Who's he?"

Berwald looked over to the boy sleeping tangled in tubes. He had gotten a better complexion, and after some fussing care by a guilt-drenched mother he wasn't quite so thin and weak. He still refused to speak with Berwald, probably because he was the only one to see the full extent of the other's vulnerability. "His name is-"

"Tino Väinamöinen," Sigurd cut off. Berwald looked up at the Norwegian, surprised. The other two looked equally astounded. Mathias arched an eyebrow inquiringly.

"What?"

"Well go on. _Do_ tell us how you know this," Mathias said in a voice drenched in implied meaning. Sigurd slapped him over the back of his head.

"We met and talked music. He's a nice guy. Keeps talking even though I don't." Erik sniggered to himself, saying something in Icelandic. Sigurd shot him a dirty look before returning to the subject. "Anyway, I bet he's been good company." He paused. "Despite his condition."

"Not really." Berwald said. "We haven't spoken much at all, really."

Now Sigurd was surprised. "Why not?"

"He isn't feeling well, obviously. And he doesn't speak Swedish either."

Sigurd stood silent for a while, before offering a thoughtful "Oh?"

* * *

><p>When Tino woke up, he was hit with a sense of surreality. The room was empty – and compared with the earlier animation (Tino had initially pretended to be asleep, but had quickly panned out for real) it was eerily silent. And in a corner, sitting perfectly still, was Sigurd. They had spoken a few times and got along pretty well, but not on visit-at-the-hospital-scale, especially considering that Tino hadn't told him that he had collapsed.<p>

"Hi..?"

"Don't worry, I was visiting Berwald. It's a small world."

"Oh. That explains it," Tino smiled tiredly.

Sigurd did not respond in kind (not that he ever did). Instead, he looked out the window.

"So… You don't speak Swedish?"

Tino's smile froze in place.

"I don't know you well enough for lectures." Sigurd cast a sideway glance at Tino. "But I do know Berwald. And I'd prefer it if you didn't lie to him." He looked down, fingering the cross he always wore in his hair. "He's a precious friend. I'd hate to see him hurt."

Hurt? How could a stranger in the opposite bed with whom you'd never even spoken hurt you? Tino opened his mouth to ask, but was interrupted by the door exploding open once again, and the silence was broken.

"Sigurd!" Mathias exclaimed. "You were here the whole time?"

"I told you, didn't I? You've got memory like a goldfish, Mathias."

"Liar," Erik coughed. Berwald looked over at Tino. The Finn looked like a deer caught in headlights. _Did Sigurd say something to him? _There was probably no use asking, though. If Sigurd wanted to say something, he said it. If he didn't, he didn't. And Tino didn't want to talk to him at all. It made him a little sad. He had promised Dr. Engels to try to get along with him, and it would relieve him of some boredom if he could speak to someone outside of visiting hours. Berwald wasn't allowed to contemplate this any longer, because Mathias had grown tired of being verbally abused by Sigurd and craved new distractions, and by the end (when nurses almost literally had to drag the noisy Dane out) he was exhausted. Though not as exhausted as Tino, he thought, as he noticed that the Finn was sleeping again. He might be doing physically better, but as Berwald studied him closer, he seemed more miserable than usual, even in his sleep, and he wished he could do something – even just the tiniest of things – to make him look a bit happier.

* * *

><p>Erik watched Sigurd intently. The two were sitting opposite each other, next to the window, on a bus heading homewards through the city whose lights were slowly lighting up all over as the natural light gradually slipped down behind the horizon. They weren't brothers by blood, but in everything else, they were, and Erik could tell something bothered the other.<p>

"What is it?"

"What is what?"

Erik frowned.

"Stop it, Sigurd. I can see it on your face. You're worried."

Sigurd cracked a small smile.

"Is it that obvious?"

"Like a giant billboard with neon pointers blinking hysterically."

Sigurd scoffed. "Now you're just being obnoxious."

Erik shrugged. "Maybe. But you're still worried about something."

Sigurd nodded. "Berwald."

"Of course." There was no judgement, no emotion behind the comment. It was an anticipated answer.

"…And Tino."

"Tino?" Erik shook his head. "I don't quite follow."

"You know how Berwald likes to help people, even if there's no profit in it himself."

"Yeah?"

"Tino might be turning into his next project."

"Ah."

"I'm not sure if Tino would like that. In fact, he'd probably reject it." Sigurd crossed his legs and sat up straight. "To begin with, Tino is Finnish, and Berwald is Swedish."

Erik nodded. Finnish-Swedish rivalry, sometimes animosity even, was legendary, although it often seemed to Erik as though it was mostly the Finns picking fights with the Swedes, while the Swedes still lived in some kind of bubble where 600+ years of shared history mattered little to nothing except for during hockey-season.

"And on top of that, Tino is now physically weak. So we've got physical weakness in addition to a minority complex, which makes him very unlikely to accept help." Sigurd raised his finger. "This, however, will make Berwald more determined to help him, because it's clear he needs it."

"And you think all the stress will make him snap."

"It might. Also – I have no real evidence for this though – I get the impression that his family isn't very well off, and that the father might be out of the picture."

"Berwald doesn't handle rejections that well." Erik said, in a way that made it partly a question.

"It's fine as long as he doesn't get too attached…" Sigurd smiled wryly. "Like with me. But I get the impression that it might be a bit different for Tino. Maybe because the weakness is more visible."

Erik thought it over. "Is there anything we could do, do you think?"

"…I hope there is," Sigurd said, pressing down the glaring STOP-button.

* * *

><p><em>Is it..? Could it be..? IT'S AN UPDATE!<em>

_I'm sorry for disappearing. I'll try to be more responsible from now on._

_I decided to stop truncating Berwald's words because it's a pain to type out and read. I don't think I'll go back and rewrite the other chapters, though, even though they need it. Quite badly. (The Tino, for example.) I'll just hope that during my absence my writing has become a little bit better, to make up for it all._

_Most of all, I would like to thank all the reviewers. I have no idea where all those 12 reviews came from, and they're the greatest reason that I came back to this story despite having grown a little tired of SuFin. Still, I'm fond of the idea for this story, so hopefully I'll see it through to the end. :)_


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